Correspondence and Report from His Majesty’s Consul at Boma respecting the Administration of the Independent State of the Congo. (continued 2)

Although my visit was of such brief duration, and the points touched at nowhere lay far off the beaten tracks of communication, the region visited was one of the most central in the Congo State, and the district in which most of my time was spent, that of the Equator, is probably one of the most productive. Moreover, I was enabled, by visiting this district, to contrast its present day state with the condition in which I had known it some sixteen years ago. Then (in 1887) I had visited most of the places I now revisited, and I was thus able to institute a comparison between a state of affairs I had myself seen when the natives lived their own savage lives in anarchic and disorderly communities, uncontrolled by Europeans, and that created by more than a decade of very energetic European intervention. That very much of this intervention has been called for no one who formerly knew the Upper Congo could doubt, and there are to-day widespread proofs of the great energy displayed by Belgian officials in introducing their methods of rule over one of the most savage regions of Africa.

Admirably built and admirably kept stations greet the traveller at many points; a fleet of river steamers, numbering, I believe, forty-eight, the property of the Congo Government, navigate the main river and its principal affluents at fixed intervals. Regular means of communication are thus afforded to some of the most inaccessible parts of Central Africa.

A railway, excellently constructed in view of the difficulties to be encountered, now connects the ocean ports with Stanley Pool, over a tract of difficult country, which formerly offered to the weary traveller on foot many obstacles to be overcome and many days of great bodily fatigue. To-day the railway works most efficiently, and I noticed many improvements, both in the permanent way and in the general management, since the date of my last visit to Stanley Pool in January 1901. The cataract region, through which the railway passes, is a generally unproductive and even sterile tract of some 220 miles in breadth. This region is, I believe, the home, or birthplace, of the sleeping sickness—a terrible disease, which is, all too rapidly, eating its way into the heart of Africa, and has even traversed the entire continent to well-nigh the shores of the Indian Ocean. The population of the Lower Congo has been gradually reduced by the unchecked ravages of this, as yet, undiagnosed and incurable disease, and as one cause of the seemingly wholesale diminution of human life which I everywhere observed in the regions revisited, a prominent place must be assigned to this malady. The natives certainly attribute their alarming death-rate to this as one of the inducing causes, although they attribute, and I think principally, their rapid decrease in numbers to other causes as well. Perhaps the most striking change observed during my journey into the interior was the great reduction observable everywhere in native life. Communities I had formerly known as large and flourishing centres of population are to-day entirely gone, or now exist in such diminished numbers as to be no longer recognizable. The southern shores of Stanley Pool had formerly a population of fully 5,000 Batekes, distributed through the three towns of Ngaliema’s (Léopoldville), Kinchasa, and Ndolo, lying within a few miles of each other. These people, some twelve years ago, decided to abandon their homes, and in one night the great majority of them crossed over into the French territory on the north shores of Stanley Pool. Where formerly had stretched these populous native African villages, I saw to-day only a few scattered European houses, belonging either to Government officials or local traders. In Léopoldville to-day there are not, I should estimate, 100 of the original natives or their descendants now residing. At Kinchasa a few more may be found dwelling around one of the European trading depôts, while at Ndolo none remain, and there is nothing there but a station of the Congo Railway Company and a Government post. These Bateke people were not, perhaps, particularly desirable subjects for an energetic Administration, which desired, above all things, progress and speedy results. They were themselves interlopers from the northern shores of the Congo River, and derived a very profitable existence as trading middlemen, exploiting the less sophisticated population among whom they had established themselves. Their loss to the southern shores of Stanley Pool is none the less to be deplored, I think, for they formed, at any rate, a connecting link between an incoming European commercial element and the background of would-be native suppliers.

Léopoldville is sometimes spoken of as a Congo town, but it cannot rightly be so termed. Apart from the Government station, which, in most respects, is very well planned, there is nothing at all resembling a town—barrack would be the correct term. The Government station of Léopoldville numbers, I was informed by its Chief, some 130 Europeans, and probably 3,000 native Government workmen, who all dwell in well ordered lines of either very well-built European houses, or, for the native staff, mud-built huts. Broad paths, which may be termed streets, connect the various parts of this Government Settlement, and an elementary effort at lighting by electricity has already evolved three lights in front of the house of the Commissaire-Général. Outside the Government staff, the general community, or public of Léopoldville, numbers less than one dozen Europeans, and possibly not more than 200 native dependents of their households or trading stores. This general public consists of two missionary establishments, numbering in all 4 Europeans; a railway station with, I think, 1 European; 4 trading establishments—1 Portuguese, 1 Belgian, 1 English, and 1 German—numbering 7 Europeans, with, perhaps, 80 or 100 native dependents; 2 British West African petty traders, and a couple of Loango tailor boys, who make clothes for the general community. This, I think, comprises almost all those not immediately dependent upon the Government.

These shops and traders do scarcely any business in native produce, of which there may be said to be none in the district, but rely upon a cash trade in Congolese currency, carried on with the large staff of Government employés, both European and native. Were this cash dealing to cease, the four European shops would be forced to put up their shutters. During the period of my stay at Léopoldville it did actually cease, and, for reasons which were not known publicly, the large native staff of Congo Government workmen, instead of receiving a part of their monthly wages in cash to spend locally—as also those being paid off on the expiry of their contracts—were remunerated by the Government in barter goods, which were issued from a Government store. This method of payment did not satisfy either the native Government employés or the local traders, and I heard many complaints on this score. The traders complained, some of them to myself, that as they had no other form of trading open to them, save this with the Government staff against cash, for the Government to itself now pay these men in goods was to end, at a blow, all trade dealings in the district. The native workmen complained, too, that they were paid in cloth which often they did not want in their own homes, and in order to have the wherewithal to purchase what they wanted, a practice at once arose amongst these men to sell for cash, at a loss to themselves, the cloth they had been forced to receive in payment from the Government store. The workmen lost on this transaction, and so did the traders. Pieces of cloth which were charged by the Government at 10 fr. each in paying off the workmen, these men would readily part with for 7 fr., and even for 6 fr. in cash. I myself, one day in June, bought for 7 fr. a-piece, from two just-discharged Government workmen, two pieces of cloth which had been charged against them at 10 fr. each. These men wished to buy salt at one of the local stores, and to obtain the means of doing so, they readily sacrificed 3 fr. in each 10 fr. of their pay. The traders, too, complained that by this extensive sale of cotton goods at reduced rates by the Government employés, their own sales of cloth at current prices were rendered well-nigh impossible throughout the district.

The 3,000 Government workpeople at Léopoldville are drawn from nearly every part of the Congo State. Some, those from the cataract district especially, go voluntarily seeking employment, but many—and I believe a vast majority—are men, or lads, brought from districts of the Upper Congo, and who serve the authorities not primarily at their own seeking. On the 16th June last, five Government workpeople brought me their contracts of engagement with a request that I might tell them how long a period they still had to serve. They were all Upper Congo men, and had already nearly completed the full term of their engagement. The contracts, in each case, appeared as having been signed and drawn up at Boma on behalf of the Governor-General of the Congo State, and were, in each case, for a term of seven years. The men informed me that they had never been to Boma, and that the whole of their period of service had been spent either at Léopoldville or on the Upper Congo. In three of these cases I observed that an alteration had been made in the period of service, in the following terms:—

“Je réduis de sept à cinq ans le terme de service du....”

This entry was signed by the acting State Inspector of the district. It seemingly had not been observed, for it was struck out by his successor, and, as a matter of fact, the full period of seven years was, in each case, within a few months of completion.

On the whole the Government workmen at Léopoldville struck me as being well cared for, and they were certainly none of them idle. The chief difficulty in dealing with so large a staff arises from the want of a sufficiency of food supply in the surrounding country. The staple food of the entire Upper Congo is a preparation of the root of the cassava plant, steeped and boiled, and made up into loaves or puddings of varying weight. The natives of the districts around Léopoldville are forced to provide a fixed quantity each week of this form of food, which is levied by requisitions on all the surrounding villages. The European Government staff is also mainly dependent upon food supplies obtained from the natives of the neighbourhood in a similar manner. This, however necessary, is not a welcome task to the native suppliers who complain that their numbers are yearly decreasing, while the demands made upon them remain fixed, or tend even to increase.

The Government station at Léopoldville and its extensive staff, exist almost solely in connection with the running of Government steamers upon the Upper Congo.

A hospital for Europeans and an establishment designed as a native hospital are in charge of a European doctor. Another doctor also resides in the Government station whose bacteriological studies are unremitting and worthy of much praise. The native hospital—not, I am given to understand, through the fault of the local medical staff—is, however, an unseemly place. When I visited the three mud huts which serve this purpose, all of them dilapidated, and two with the thatched roofs almost gone, I found seventeen sleeping sickness patients, male and female, lying about in the utmost dirt. Most of them were lying on the bare ground—several out on the pathway in front of the houses, and one, a woman, had fallen into the fire just prior to my arrival (while in the final, insensible stage of the disease), and had burned herself very badly. She had since been well bandaged, but was still lying out on the ground with her head almost in the fire, and while I sought to speak to her, in turning, she upset a pot of scalding water over her shoulder. All of the seventeen persons I saw were near their end, and on my second visit, two days later, the 19th June, I found one of them lying dead out in the open.

In somewhat striking contrast to the neglected state of these people, I found, within a couple of hundred yards of them, the Government workshop for repairing and fitting the steamers. Here all was brightness, care, order, and activity, and it was impossible not to admire and commend the industry which had created and maintained in constant working order this useful establishment. In conjunction with a local missionary, some effort was made during my stay at Léopoldville, to obtain an amelioration of the condition of the sleeping-sickness people in the native hospital, but it was stated, in answer to my friend’s representations, that nothing could be done in the way of building a proper hospital until plans now under consideration had been matured elsewhere. The structures I had visited, which the local medical staff greatly deplored, had endured for several years as the only form of hospital accommodation provided for the numerous native staff of the district.

The Government stores at Léopoldville are large and well built, and contain not only the goods the Government itself sends up river in its fleet of steamers, but also the goods of the various Concession Companies. As a rule, the produce brought down river by the Government steamers is transhipped direct into the railway trucks which run alongside the wharf, and is carried thence by train to Matadi for shipment to Europe. The various Companies carrying on operations on the Upper Congo, and who hold Concessions from the Congo Government, are bound, I was told, by Conventions to abstain from carrying, save within the limits of their Concessions, either goods or passengers. This interdiction extends to their own merchandise and to their own agents. Should they carry, by reason of imperative need, outside these limits any of their own goods or their own people, they are bound to pay to the Congo Government either the freight or passage money according to the Government tariff, just as though the goods or passengers had been conveyed on one of the Government vessels. The tariff upon goods and passengers carried along the interior waterways is a fairly high one, not perhaps excessive under the circumstances, but still one that, by reason of this virtual monopoly, can produce a yearly revenue which must go far towards maintaining the Government flotilla. By the estimates for 1902, published in the “Bulletin Officiel” of January this year, the transport service is credited with a production of 3,100,000 fr. of public revenue for 1902, while the expenditure for the same year is put at 2,023,376 fr. That this restriction of public conveyance to Government vessels alone is not altogether a public gain my own experience demonstrated. I had wished to leave Stanley Pool for the Upper Congo at an early date after my arrival in Léopoldville, but as the Government vessels were mostly crowded, I could not proceed with any comfort by one of these. The steam-ship “Flandre,” one of the largest of these vessels, which left Léopoldville for Stanley Falls on the 22nd June, and by which I had, at first, intended to proceed, quitted port with more than twenty European passengers over her complement, all of whom, I was informed, would have to sleep on deck. I accordingly was forced to seek other means of travelling, and through the kindness of the Director of one of the large commercial Companies (the “Société Anonyme Belge du Haut-Congo”) I found excellent accommodation, as a guest, on one of his steamers. Although thus an invited guest and not paying any passage money, special permission had to be sought from the Congo Government before this act of courtesy could be shown me, and I saw the telegram from the local authority, authorizing my conveyance to Chumbiri.

This commercial Company has three other steamers, but the interdiction referred to applies to the entire flotilla of trading vessels of Congolese nationality on the Upper River. Despite the fact that these vessels are not allowed to earn freight or passage, they are all, for their tonnage, heavily taxed, while the Government vessels, which earn considerable sums on transport of general goods and passengers, pay no taxes. The four vessels of the Société Anonyme Belge du Haut-Congo referred to, of which the largest is only, I believe, one of 30 tons, pay annually, I was informed, the following taxes:—

Fr. For permission to cut firewood 17,870 Licence for each steamer, according to her tonnage 400 to 600 The master of each vessel must be licensed, for which a tax of 20 fr. per annum is levied.

Himself and each European member of the crew must then pay 30 fr. per annum as “imposition personnelle,” whilst each native member of the crew costs his employers 3 fr. per head for engagement licence annually, and 10 fr. per head per annum as “imposition personnelle.”

The “President Urban,” the largest steamer of the Company referred to, under these various heads pays, I was informed, a sum of not less than 11,000 fr. in taxes per annum. Should she carry any of the agents of the Company owning her, or any of its goods, save within the restricted area of its Concession, her owners must pay to the Congo Government both passage money and freight on these, just as though they had been sent by one of the Government vessels.

No firewood may be cut by the public within half-an-hour’s steaming distance of any of the Government wooding posts, which are naturally chosen at the best wooding sites available along the various waterways, so that the 10,000 fr. wood-cutting licence which the “President Urban” pays entitles her only to cut up for fuel such suitable timber as her crew may be able to find in the less accessible spots.

At F* I spent four days. I had visited this place in August 1887 when the line of villages comprising the settlement contained from 4,000 to 5,000 people. Most of these villages to-day are entirely deserted, the forest having grown over the abandoned sites, and the entire community at the present date cannot number more than 500 souls. There is no Government station at F*, but the Government telegraph line which connects Léopoldville with Coquilhatville, the headquarters of the Equator district, runs through the once townlands of the F* villages close to the river bank. The people of the riverside towns, and from 20 miles inland, have to keep the line clear of undergrowth, and in many places the telegraph road serves as a useful public path between neighbouring villages. Some of the natives of the neighbourhood complained that for this compulsory utilitarian service they had received no remuneration of any kind; and those at a distance that they found it hard to feed themselves when far from their homes they were engaged on this task. Inquiry in the neighbourhood established that no payment for this work had seemingly been made for fully a year.

Men are also required to work at the neighbouring wood-cutting post for the Government steamers, which is in charge of a native Headman or Kapita, who is under the surveillance of a European “Chef de Poste” at Bolobo, the nearest Government station, which lies about 40 miles up-stream. These wood-cutters, although required compulsorily to serve and sometimes irregularly detained, are adequately paid for their services.

The F* villages have to supply kwanga (the prepared cassava root already referred to) for the neighbouring wood-cutting post, and the quantity required of them is, they asserted, in excess of their means of supply and out of proportion to the value received in exchange. The supply required of them was fixed, I found, at 380 kwanga (or boiled cassava puddings) every six days, each pudding weighing from 4-1/2 lb. to 6 lb., or a total of from 1,700 lb. to 1 ton weight of carefully prepared food-stuffs per week. For this a payment of one brass rod per kwanga is made, giving a sum of 19 fr. in all for the several villages whose task it is to keep the wood post victualled. These villages by careful computation I reckoned contained 240 persons all told—men, women, and children. In addition to preparing and carrying this food a considerable distance to the Government post, these people have to take their share in keeping the telegraph line clear and in supplying Government workmen. One elderly man was arrested at the period of my visit to serve as a soldier and was taken to Bolobo, 40 miles away, but was subsequently released upon representations made by a missionary who knew him. The number of wood-cutters at the local post is about thirty I was informed, so that the amount of food levied is beyond their requirements, and the excess is said to be sold by them at a profit to the crews of passing steamers. At one of the smallest of these F* villages, where there are not more than ten persons all told, and only three of these women able to prepare and cook the food, 40 kwanga (180 lb. to 270 lb. weight of food) had to be supplied every week at a payment of 40 rods (2 fr.). These people said: “How can we possibly plant and weed our gardens, seek and prepare and boil the cassava, make it into portable shape, and then carry it nearly a day’s journey to the post? Moreover, if the kwanga we make are a little small or not well-cooked, or if we complain that the rods given us in settlement are too short, as they sometimes are, then we are beaten by the wood-cutters, and sometimes we are detained several days to cut firewood as a punishment.”

Statements of this kind might be tediously multiplied.

The local mission station at F* requires much smaller kwanga than the Government size, getting from 1-1/2 lb. to 2 lb. weight of food at the same price—viz., 1 rod. The kwanga made up for general consumption, as sold in local markets, weigh only about 1 lb. each. The Government requires, delivered free, even at considerable distances, from four and a-half to six times the weight of prepared food to that sold publicly for 1/2d.

In most parts of the Upper Congo the recognized currency consists of lengths of brass wire; these lengths varying according to the district. At one period the recognized length of a brass rod was 18 inches, but to-day the average length of a rod cannot be more than 8 or 9 inches. The nominal value of one of these rods is 1/2d., twenty of them being reckoned to the franc; but the intrinsic value, or actual cost of a rod to any importer of the brass wire direct from Europe, would come to less than a 1/4d., I should say. Such as it is, clumsy and dirty, this is the principal form of currency known on the Upper Congo where, saving some parts of the French Congo I visited, European money is still quite unknown.

The reasons for the decrease of population at F* given me, both by the natives and by others, point to sleeping sickness as probably one of the principal factors. There has also been emigration to the opposite side of the river, to the French shore, but this course has never, I gather, been popular. The people have not easily accommodated themselves to the altered condition of life brought about by European Government in their midst. Where formerly they were accustomed to take long voyages down to Stanley Pool to sell slaves, ivory, dried fish, or other local products against such European merchandise as the Bateke middlemen around the Pool had to offer in exchange, they find themselves to-day debarred from all such form of activity.

The open selling of slaves and the canoe convoys, which once navigated the Upper Congo, have everywhere disappeared. No act of the Congo State Government has perhaps produced more laudable results than the vigorous suppression of this widespread evil. In the 160 miles’ journey from Léopoldville to F* I did not see one large native canoe in mid-stream, and only a few small canoes creeping along the shore near to native villages. While the suppression of an open form of slave dealing has been an undoubted gain, much that was not reprehensible in native life has disappeared along with it. The trade in ivory has to-day entirely passed from the hands of the natives of the Upper Congo, and neither fish nor any other outcome of local industry now changes hands on an extensive scale or at any distance from home.

So far as I could observe in the limited time at my disposal, the people of F* now rarely leave their homes save when required by the local Government official at Bolobo to serve as soldiers, or woodcutters at one of the Government posts, or to convey the weekly supplies of food required of them to the nearest Government station. These demands for food-stuffs comprise fowls and goats for consumption by the European members of the Government staff at Léopoldville, or for passengers on the Government steamers. They emanate from the Chief of the post at Bolobo who, I understand, is required in so far as he can, to keep up this supply. In order to obtain this provision he is forced to exercise continuous pressure on the local population, and within recent times that pressure has not always taken the form of mere requisition. Armed expeditions have been necessary and a more forcible method of levying supplies adopted than the law either contemplated or justifies. Very specific statements as to the harm one of these recent expeditions worked in the country around F* were made to me during my stay there. The officer in command of the G* district, at the head of a band of soldiers passed through a portion of the district wherein the natives, unaccustomed to the duties expected of them, had been backward in sending in both goats and fowls.

The result of this expedition, which took place towards the end of 1900, was that in fourteen small villages traversed seventeen persons disappeared. Sixteen of these whose names were given to me were killed by the soldiers, and their bodies recovered by their friends, and one was reported as missing. Of those killed eleven were men, three women, and one a boy child of 5 years. Ten persons were tied up and taken away as prisoners, but were released on payment of sixteen goats by their friends, except one, a child, who died at Bolobo. In addition 48 goats were taken away and 225 fowls; several houses were burned, and a quantity of their owners’ property either pillaged or destroyed. Representations on behalf of the injured villages were made to the Inspecteur d’État at Léopoldville, who greatly deplored the excesses of his subordinate, and sent to hold an inquiry and to pay compensation to the relatives of those killed and for the live-stock or goods destroyed or taken away. The local estimate of the damage done amounted to 71,730 brass rods (3,586 fr.), which included 20,500 brass rods (1,025 fr.), assessed as compensation for the seventeen people. Three of these were Chiefs, and the amount asked for would have worked out at about 1,000 brass rods (50 fr.) per head, not probably an extravagant estimate for human life, seeing that the goats were valued at 400 rods each (20 fr.). A total sum, I was told, of 18,000 brass rods (950 fr.) was actually paid to the injured villages by the Government Commissioner, who came from Stanley Pool; and this sum, it was said, was levied as a fine for his misconduct on the official responsible for the raid. I could not learn what other form of punishment, if any, was inflicted on this officer. He remained as the Government Representative for some time afterwards, was then transferred to another post in the immediate neighbourhood, and finally went home at the expiration of his period of service.

At Bolobo, where I spent ten days waiting for a steamer to continue my journey, a somewhat similar state of affairs prevails to that existing at F*. Bolobo used to be one of the most important native Settlements along the south bank of the Upper Congo, and the population in the early days of civilized rule numbered fully 40,000 people, chiefly of the Bobangi tribe. To-day the population is believed to be not more than 7,000 or 8,000 souls. The Bolobo men were famous in former days for their voyages to Stanley Pool and their keen trading ability. All of their large canoes have to-day disappeared, and while some of them still hunt hippopotami—which are still numerous in the adjacent waters—I did not observe anything like industry among them.

Indeed, it would be hard to say how the people now live or how they occupy their own time. They did not complain so much of the weekly enforced food supplies required of them, which would, indeed, seem to be an unavoidable necessity of the situation, as to the unexpected calls frequently made upon them. Neither rubber nor ivory is obtained in this neighbourhood. The food supply and a certain amount of local labour is all that is enforced. As woodcutters, station hands in the Government post, canoe paddlers, workers on the telegraph route or in some other public capacity, they are liable to frequent requisition.

The labour required did not seem to be excessive, but it would seem to be irregularly called for, unequally distributed, and only poorly remunerated, or sometimes not remunerated at all.

Complaints as to the manner of exacting service are much more frequent than complaints as to the fact of service being required. If the local official has to go on a sudden journey men are summoned on the instant to paddle his canoe, and a refusal entails imprisonment or a beating. If the Government plantation or the kitchen garden require weeding, a soldier will be sent to call in the women from some of the neighbouring towns. To the official this is a necessary public duty which he cannot but impose, but to the women suddenly forced to leave their household tasks and to tramp off, hoe in hand, baby on back, with possibly a hungry and angry husband at home, the task is not a welcome one.

One of the weightier tasks imposed upon the neighbourhood during my stay at Bolobo was the construction of a wooden pier at the Government beach whereat Government vessels might come alongside.

I visited this incompleted structure several times, and estimated that from 1,500 to 2,000 trees and saplings had already been used in its partial construction. All of these were cut down and carried in by the men of some of the neighbouring towns, and for this compulsory service no remuneration had, up to that date, I was on all sides informed, been made to any one of them. They were ordered, they said, to do it as a public duty. The timber needed had to be sought at a considerable distance, most of the trees had been carried some miles, and the task was not altogether an agreeable one. The chief complaint I heard directed against this work, however, was that the pier was being so badly put up that when finished it would be quite useless, and all their work would thus be thrown away. My own opinion of the structure was that this criticism was well founded, and that the first annual rise of the river would sweep most of the ill-laid timbers away.

The Bolobo people do not object so much to the regular food tax, just because this is regular, and they can prepare and regularly meet it, as to the sudden and unexpected labour tasks, such as canoe journeys, or this more onerous pier building. They could, I perceived, trace no connection between this hastily-conceived exaction on their time and labour and a system of general contribution in the public interest, which, to be readily admitted, should be clearly defined. Were a regular annual tax levied in money, or some medium of barter exchange serving as a legal currency, the people would in time be brought to see that a payment of this kind evenly distributed and enforced was, indeed, a public duty they were bound to acquit themselves of, and one their Government was justified in strictly enforcing; but they do not assign any such value to the unsystematic calls upon them which prevail to-day. To be hastily summoned from their usual home avocations, or even from their possibly habitual idleness, to perform one or other of the tasks indicated above, and to get neither food nor pay for their exertions, as is often the case, seems to these unprogressive people not a public service they are called upon to perform in the public interest, but a purely personal burden laid upon their bodies and their time by the local agent of an organization which, to them, would seem to exist chiefly for its own profit.

The weight of the kwanga required at Bolobo seemed to be less than that enforced at F*, and I found that this variance existed throughout the Upper Congo. At Bolobo the kwanga loaves supplied to the Government post weighed each a little over 3 lb. That made for ordinary sale in the public market just over 1 lb.: one of each that I weighed myself gave 3 lb. 2 oz. to the Government loaf, and 13 oz. to that made for general consumption. The price paid in each case was the same—viz., one brass rod.

At the village of H*, some 4 or 5 miles from the Government post, which I visited, I found the village to number some forty adult males with their families. This village has to supply weekly to the Government post 400 of these loaves (say 1,250 lb. weight of food) for which a payment of 20 fr. (400 rods) is made. The people of H* told me that when short of cassava from their own fields for the preparation of this supply, they bought the root in the local market and had to pay for it in the raw state just twice what they received for the prepared and cooked product they delivered at the post. I had no means of verifying this statement, but I was assured by many persons that it was strictly true. In addition to supplying this food weekly, H* is liable to the usual calls for canoe paddlers, day labourers at the Government station (male and female), timber gatherers for the pier, and woodcutters at the local wood-post of the Government steamers.

There was a good deal of sickness in this town, and in that beyond it at the date of my visit. Sleeping sickness and, still more, small-pox. Both diseases have done much to reduce the population. Emigration to the French shore, once active, would seem now to have ceased. Efforts are made locally, to improve the physical and sanitary condition of the people, and improvements due to these efforts are becoming apparent, but I was given to understand that progress is very slow.

The insufficiency of food generally observable in this part of the Congo would seem to account for much sickness, and probably for the mental depression of the natives I so often observed, itself a frequent cause of disease. The Chief of the Government post at G* during a part of my stay there told me that he thought the district was quite exhausted, and that it must be ever increasingly difficult to obtain food from it for the public requirements of the local administration.

Some 40 miles above Bolobo a large “camp d’instruction,” with from 600 to 800 native recruits and a staff of several European officers is established at a place called Yumbi. I had, to my regret, no opportunity of visiting this camp, although I met one of its officers who very kindly invited me there, promising a hearty welcome. He informed me that native food supplies were fairly plentiful in the neighbourhood of this camp, and that the principal rations of the soldiers consisted of hippopotamus meat, the Congo in that neighbourhood affording a seemingly inexhaustible supply of these creatures.

In front of the house of one of the natives in a village, I saw some seventy hippopotamus skulls. The animals, I was told, had all been killed by one man. Many are speared, and some are shot by the native hunters with cap-guns. A somewhat considerable trade in these weapons appears to have been done until recently by the Government Agents in the district, and I found several of the Bolobo young men with guns of this description which they had bought at different times from the local official, generally paying for them with ivory tusks. The sale of these arms by Representatives of the Congo Government would seem to have ceased somewhat more than a year ago, since which date the holders of the guns have been exposed to some trouble in order to obtain licences. Dealing in or holding guns of this description would seem to be regulated by clearly drawn up Regulations, which, however, do not seem to have been observed until last year. A tax of 20 fr. is now levied on the issue of a licence to bear arms, which the law renders obligatory on every gun holder, but this tax is also collected in an irregular manner.

I learned while at Bolobo that a large influx from the I* district (which comprises the “Domaine de la Couronne”) had lately taken place into the country behind G*. The nearest Settlement of these emigrants was said to be about 20 to 25 miles from G*, and I determined to visit this place. I spent three days on this journey, visited two large villages in the interior belonging to the K* tribe, wherein I found that fully half the population now consisted of refugees belonging to the L* tribe who had formerly dwelt near I*. I saw and questioned several groups of these people, whom I found to be industrious blacksmiths and brass-workers. These people consisted of old and young men, women, and children. They had fled from their country and sought an asylum with their friends the K* during the last four years. The distance they had travelled in their flight they put at about six or seven days’ march—which I should estimate at from 120 to 150 miles of walking. They went on to declare, when asked why they had fled, that they had endured such ill-treatment at the hands of the Government officials and the Government soldiers in their own country that life had become intolerable, that nothing had remained for them at home but to be killed for failure to bring in a certain amount of rubber or to die from starvation or exposure in their attempts to satisfy the demands made upon them. The statements made to me by these people were of such a nature that I could not believe them to be true. The fact remained, however, that they had certainly abandoned their homes and all that they possessed, had travelled a long distance, and now preferred a species of mild servitude among the K* to remaining in their own country. I took careful note of the statements made to me by these people, which will be found in the transcript attached (Inclosure 1).[12] I subsequently found when at M* some days later, other L*, who confirmed the truth of the statements made to me at N*.

On reaching Bolobo in September I obtained information amply confirming the statements made to me. My own further inquiries at M* are embodied in the accompanying document (Inclosure 1).[13]

Leaving Bolobo on the 23rd July, I passed on up river in a small steam-launch I had been fortunate enough to secure for my private use. We touched at several points on the French shore, and on the 25th July reached Lukolela, where I spent two days. This district had, when I visited it in 1887, numbered fully 5,000 people; to-day the population is given, after a careful enumeration, at less than 600. The reasons given me for their decline in numbers were similar to those furnished elsewhere, viz., sleeping-sickness, general ill-health, insufficiency of food, and the methods employed to obtain labour from them by local officials and the exactions levied on them. The Lukolela district furnishes a small supply of rubber, which is required by the Local Government posts to be brought in at fixed periods as a general contribution. Food—“kwanga” and fish—are also required of the riverside dwellers. The towns I visited were very ill-kept and tumble-down, and bore no comparison, either in the class of dwelling-houses now adopted or in the extent of cultivated ground around them, to the condition in which these people formerly dwelt.

Several reasons for the increase of sickness and the great falling-off in the population of the district were stated by the local missionary, who has resided for many years at Lukolela, in two letters which he recently addressed to the Governor-General of the Congo State. A copy of these letters was handed to me by the writer—the Rev. John Whitehead—on my calling in at Lukolela on my way down river on the 12th September. I had no opportunity of verifying, by personal observation, the statements made by Mr. Whitehead in his letter, for my stay at Lukolela was only one of a few hours. I have, however, no right to doubt Mr. Whitehead’s veracity, and he declared himself prepared to accept full responsibility for the statements his letter contained. A copy of these letters is appended (Inclosure 2).[14]

The Government post at Lukolela I did not visit, but viewed from the river it presents a charming aspect; well-built houses, surrounded by plantations of coffee-trees, extend for some distance along the shore.

From Lukolela I proceeded to O*, which I purposed visiting. O*, with its two adjoining villages, when I had last seen them in the autumn of 1887, had presented a scene of the greatest animation. The population of the three towns then numbered some 4,000 to 5,000 people—O* alone, it was estimated, containing at least 3,000. Scores of men had put off in canoes to greet us with invitations that we should spend the night in their village. On steaming into O*, I found that this village had entirely disappeared, and that its place was occupied by a large “camp d’instruction,” where some 800 native recruits, brought from various parts of the Congo State, are drilled into soldierhood by a Commandant and a staff of seven or eight European officers and non-commissioned officers.

There is also a large plantation of coffee-trees, a telegraph office, and a trading store, but I could see no indications of native life beyond those dependent on these establishments. The once villages and their fields had been converted into a very well-laid-out and admirably-maintained military station. From the Commandant and his officers a cordial welcome was received. The camp as a military centre is excellently chosen, the situation of Irebu commanding not only the Lake Mantumba waterway, but one of the chief navigable channels of the Congo; and it is, moreover, situated opposite the estuary of the great Ubangi River, which is probably the most important Congo affluent. The Commandant informed me that a very large supply of native food, amply sufficient for the soldiers under his command, was supplied weekly by the natives of the surrounding district.

It is difficult to exactly estimate the number of soldiers enrolled and maintained by the Congo Government. There are, I think, four separate “camps d’instruction” upon the Upper Congo, each of which should have an effective of 700 men. The effective strengths of the companies of Manyuema, Lake Léopold II, Lualaba-Kasai, Aruwimi, and Ruzizi-Kivu were fixed respectively by Circular of the Governor-General, dated the 25th June, 1902, at 750, 475, 850, 450, and 875 men. There are many other companies of the “Force Publique” in the Congo State, and I think it might safely be estimated that the number of men with the colours does not amount to less than 18,000. By a Circular addressed to the local authorities, dated the 26th May last, the Governor-General stated that it was necessary to add 200 men to each of the camps in the Upper Congo. In the same Circular a proposed increase of the general strength of the army was indicated in the following terms:—

“Notre programme militaire est très vaste et sa réalisation exige une attention soutenue et de grands efforts, mais sans son exécution intégrale notre situation demeurera précaire.

“S’il le fallait, mais je ne pense pas même que ce soit nécessaire, le Gouvernement se montrerait disposé à augmenter dans une certaine mesure le contingent pour 1903.”

The same Circular added that:—

“Certains districts en effet ne remplacent pas les miliciens décédés, désertés en cours de route et ceux réformés à leur arrivée au camp.

“De plus, pendant la période d’instruction dans les camps un grand nombre de déchets se produisent aussi parmi ces recrues, les transports de miliciens laissant encore a désirer.”

The Commandant informed me that some of the natives who had fled into the French territory opposite ten years ago, when the Irebu tribes had deserted their homes, were now gradually returning to Congo State territory. I found, subsequently, that this was the case, the people alleging that since the rubber tax had been dropped in the Mantumba district they preferred returning to their home lands to remaining on the strange sites in French territory, to which they had fled when that tax was at work.

From Irebu I proceeded some 25 miles to Ikoko, once a large village on the north shore of Lake Mantumba. I remained in Lake Mantumba seventeen days visiting, during that time, the Government post at Bikoro on the east shore of the lake, and many native towns scattered around the lake side. I also ascended by boat one of the rivers falling into the lake, and visited three native villages in the forest situated along this waterway. Lake Mantumba is a fine sheet of water about 25 or 30 miles long and some 12 or 15 miles broad at the broadest part, surrounded by a dense forest. The inhabitants of the district are of the Ntomba tribe, and are still rude savages, using very fine bows and arrows and ill-made spears as their weapons. There are also in the forest country many families or clans of a dwarf race called Batwas, who are of a much more savage and untameable disposition than the Ntombas, who form the bulk of the population. Both Batwas and Ntombas are still cannibals, and cannibalism, although repressed and not so openly indulged in as formerly, is still prevalent in the district. The Mantumba people were, in the days before the establishment of Congo State rule, among the most active fishermen and traders of the Upper Congo. In fleets of canoes they used to issue out upon the main waters of the Congo and travel very great distances, fighting their way if necessary, in search of purchasers of their fish or slaves, or to procure these latter. All this has ceased and, save for small canoes used in catching fish, I saw neither on the lake itself nor at the many villages I touched along its shores, any canoes comparable to those so frequently seen in the past. A man I visited told me that a fine canoe he bought for 2,000 brass rods (100 fr.), in which to send the weekly imposition of fish to the local State post, had been kept by the official there, had been used to transport Government soldiers in, and was now attached to a Government wood-cutting post, which he named, out on the main river. He had received nothing for the loss of this canoe, and when I urged him to lay the matter before the local official responsible, who had doubtless retained the canoe in ignorance, he pulled up his loin cloth and, pointing to where he had been flogged with a chicotte, said: “If I complained I should only get more of these.” Although afraid to complain locally, he declared he would be perfectly willing to accompany me if I would take him before one of the Congo Judges or, above all, down to Boma. I assured him that a statement such as that he had made to me would meet with attention at Boma, and that if he could prove its truth he would get satisfaction for the loss of the canoe.

Statements of a similar character, often supported by many witnesses, were made to me more than once during my journey around the lake, some of them pointing to far greater derelictions of duty. The same man told me, on the same occasion, that one of the Government officials of the district (the same man, indeed, who had retained the canoe) had recently given him three wives. The official, he declared, had been “making war” on a town in the forest I was then in, for failing to bring in its fixed food supply, and as a result of the punitive measures undertaken the town had been destroyed and many prisoners taken. As a result, several women so taken were homeless, and were distributed. “Wives were being given away that day,” said my informant, “he gave me three, but another man got four.” The man went on to say that one of these “wives” had since escaped, aided, as he complained, by one of his own townsmen, who was a slave from her own native town.

The population of the lake-side towns would seem to have diminished within the last ten years by 60 or 70 per cent. It was in 1893 that the effort to levy an india-rubber imposition in this district was begun, and for some four or five years this imposition could only be collected at the cost of continual fighting. Finding the task of collecting india-rubber a well nigh impossible one, the authorities abandoned it in this district, and the remaining inhabitants now deliver a weekly supply of food-stuffs for the up-keep of the military camp at Irebu, or the big coffee plantation at Bikoro. Several villages I visited supply also to the latter station a fortnightly tax of gum-copal, which the surrounding forests yield abundantly. Gum-copal is also exposed and washed up on the shores of the lake. The quantity of this commodity supplied by each village on which it is assessed is put at 10 bags per fortnight. Each bag is officially said to contain 25 kilog., so that the imposition would amount to a quarter of a ton weight per fortnight. I found, when trying to lift some of these bags I saw being packed at a native village I was in, that they must weigh considerably more than 25 kilog., so that I concluded that each sack represents that quantity net of gum-copal. There is a considerable loss in cleaning, chipping, and washing crude gum as collected. The quantity brought by each village would thus work out at 6-1/2 tons per annum. When I visited the Government station at P*, the chief of that post showed me ten sacks of gum which he said had been just brought in by a very small village in the neighbourhood. For this quarter of a ton of gum-copal he said he had paid the village one piece of blue drill—a rough cotton cloth which is valued locally, after adding the cost of transport, at 11-1/2 fr. a-piece. By the Congo Government “Bulletin Officiel” of this year (No. 4, April 1903) I found that 339-1/2 tons of gum-copal were exported in 1902, all from the Upper Congo, and that this was valued at 475,490 fr. The value per ton would, therefore, work out at about 56l. The fortnightly yield of each village would therefore seem to be worth a maximum of 14l. (probably less), for which a maximum payment of 11-1/2 fr. is made. At one village I visited I found the majority of the inhabitants getting ready the gum-copal and the supply of fish which they had to take to P* on the morrow. They were putting it into canoes to paddle across the lake—some 20 miles—and they left with their loads in the night from alongside my steamer. These people told me that they frequently received, instead of cloth, 150 brass rods (7-1/2 fr.) for the quarter of a ton of gum-copal they took fortnightly.

The value of the annual payment in gum-copal made by each town would seem to be about 360l., while at an average of 9 fr. as the remuneration each receives fortnightly, they would appear to receive some 10l. in annual return.

In the village of Montaka, at the south end of the lake, where I spent two days, the people seemed, during my stay, to be chiefly engrossed in the task of chipping and preparing the gum-copal for shipment to Bikoro, and in getting ready their weekly yield of fish for the same post. I saw the filling with gum of the ten basket-sacks taking place under the eyes of the Chief—who himself contributed—and a State sentry who was posted there. Each household in the town was represented at this final task, and every adult householder of Montaka shared in the general contribution. Assuming the population of Montaka at from 600 to 800—and it cannot now be more although a town of 4,000 souls ten years ago—fully 150 householders are thus directly affected by the collection and delivery, each fortnight, of this “impôt en nature,” and are affected for the great majority of the days throughout the year.

Since for the 6-1/2 tons of gum-copal which the 150 householders of Montaka contribute annually, they are seen to receive not more than a total payment of 10l. in the year—viz., 26 fortnightly payments of, on an average, say 9 fr. 50 c., giving 247 fr. annually—it follows that the remuneration each adult householder of Montaka receives for his entire year’s work is the one hundred and fiftieth part of that total—or just 1s. 4d. This is just the value of an adult fowl in Montaka. I bought ten fowls, or chickens rather, the morning of my going away, and for the only reasonably sized one among them I gave 30 rods (1 fr. 50 c.), the others, small fledglings, ranging from 15 to 20 rods each (75 cents. to 1 fr.).

The 6-1/2 tons of gum-copal supplied annually by these 150 householders being valued at about 364l., it follows that each householder had contributed something like 2l. 8s. per annum in kind.

The labour involved may or may not be unduly excessive—but it is continuous throughout the year—each man must stay in his town and be prepared each week and fortnight to have his contribution ready under fear of summary punishment.

The natives engaged as workmen on my steamer were paid each a sum of 20 rods (1 fr.) per week for food rations only, and 100 rods (5 fr.) per month wages. One of these native workmen thus earned more in one week of my service—which was that of any other private establishment employing ordinary labour—than the Montaka householder got in an entire year for his compulsory public service rendered to the Government.

At other villages which I visited, I found the tax to consist of baskets, which the inhabitants had to make and deliver weekly as well as, always, a certain amount of food-stuffs—either kwanga or fish. These baskets are used at Bikoro in packing up the gum-copal for conveyance down the river and to Europe—the river transport being effected by Government steamers. The basket-makers and other workers complained that they were sometimes remunerated for their labour with reels of sewing cotton and shirt buttons (of which they had no use) when supplies of cloth or brass wire ran short at Bikoro. As these natives go almost entirely naked, I could believe that neither thread or shirt buttons were of much service to them. They also averred that they were frequently flogged for delay or inability to complete the tale of these baskets, or the weekly supply of food. Several men, including a Chief of one town, showed broad weals across their buttocks, which were evidently recent. One, a lad of 15 or so, removing his cloth, showed several scars across his thighs, which he and others around him said had formed part of a weekly payment for a recent shortage in their supply of food. That these statements were not all untrue was confirmed by my visit to P*, when the “domaine privé” store was shown to me. It had very little in it, and I learned that the barter stock of goods had not been replenished for some time. There appeared to be from 200 to 300 pieces of coarse cotton cloth, and nothing else, and as the cloth was visibly old, I estimated the value of the entire stock at possibly 15l. It certainly would not have fetched more if put up to auction in any part of the Upper Congo.

The instructions regulating the remuneration of the native contributors and the mode of exploitation of the “forêts domaniales” were issued in the “Bulletin Officiel” of 1896, under authority of Decrees dated the 30th October and the 5th December, 1892.

These general instructions require that:—

“L’exploitation se fait par les agents de l’Intendance, sous la direction du Commissaire de District.

“Tout ce qui se rapporte à l’exploitation du domaine privé doit être séparé nettement des autres services gouvernementaux.

“Les agents préposés à l’exploitation du domaine privé consacrent tous leurs soins au développement de la récolte du caoutchouc et des autres produits de la forêt.

“Quel que soit le mode d’exploitation adopté à cet effet, ils sont tenus d’accorder aux indigènes une rémunération qui ne sera en aucun cas inférieure au montant du prix de la main-d’œuvre nécessaire à la récolte du produit; cette rémunération est fixée par le Commissaire de District, qui soumet son tarif à l’approbation du Gouverneur-Général.

“L’Inspecteur d’État en mission vérifie si ce tarif est en rapport avec le prix de la main-d’œuvre; il veille à sa stricte application, et il examine si les conditions générales d’exploitation ne donnent lieu à aucune plainte justifiée.

“Il fait comprendre aux agents chargés du service que, par le fait de rétribuer équitablement l’indigène, ils emploient le seul moyen efficace d’assurer la bonne administration du domaine et de faire naître chez lui le goût et l’habitude du travail.”

Both from the condition of the Domaine Privé Store I inspected at P*, and the obvious poverty and universal discontent of the native contributors, whose towns I visited during the seventeen days spent in Lake Mantumba, it was clear that these instructions had long since ceased to be operative. The responsibility for the non-application of such necessary regulations could not be attributed to the local officials, who, obviously, if left without the means of adequate remuneration could not themselves make good the oversights or omissions of their superiors. That these omissions form part of a systematic breach of instructions conceived in the interest of the native I do not assert, but it was most apparent that neither in Lake Mantumba nor the other portions of the Domaine Privé which I visited was any adequate provision made for inculcating the natives with any just appreciation of the value of work.

The station at Bikoro has been established as a Government plantation for about ten years. It stands on the actual site of the former native town of Bikoro, an important Settlement in 1893, now reduced to a handful of ill-kept, untidy huts, inhabited by only a remnant of its former expropriated population.

Another small village, Bomenga, stands on the other side of the Government houses; the plantation enveloping both villages, and occupying their old cassava fields and gardens, which are now planted with coffee trees. Further inland these give place to cocoa and india-rubber trees (fantumia elastica), and also to the indigenous Landolphia creeper, which is being extensively cultivated. The entire plantation covers 800 hectares. There are 70 kilom. of well-cleared pathway through it, one of these roads measuring 11 kilom. in almost a straight line; 400 workmen are employed, consisting in small part of local natives, but chiefly of men brought from a distance. One numerous group I saw I was informed were “prisoners” from the Ruki district. There are 140,000 coffee trees and 170,000 cocoa trees actually in the ground, the latter a later planting than the coffee. Last year the yield was: coffee 112 tons, and cocoa 7 tons, all of which, after cleaning and preparing at the Government depôt at Kinchasa, was shipped to Europe on the Government account. India-rubber planting was not begun until November 1901. There are now 248 hectares already under cultivation, having 700,000 young Landolphia creepers, and elsewhere on the plantation, on portions mainly given up to coffee growing, there are 50,000 fantumia elastica and 50,000 manihot glaziovii trees. The station buildings are composed entirely of native materials, and are erected entirely by local native labour. The Chief of the Post has very ably directed the work of this plantation, which engrosses all his time, and until quite recently he had no assistant. A subordinate official is now placed under his orders. When he took over the district he told me there were sixty-eight native soldiers attached to the post, which number he has now been able to reduce to nineteen. In the days when the india-rubber tax prevailed in Lake Mantumba there were several hundreds of soldiers required in that region. No rubber is now worked in the neighbourhood I am informed.

Despite the 70 kilom. of roadway through the plantation, much of which has to be frequently—indeed daily—traversed, the two Europeans have no means of locomotion provided them, and must make their daily inspection to various points of this large plantation on foot.

In addition to the control of this flourishing establishment, the Chief of the Post is the Executive Chief of the entire district, but it is evident that but little time or energy could be left to the most energetic official for duties outside the immediate scope of his work as a coffee and india-rubber grower, in addition to those “engrossing cares” the general instructions cited above impose upon the agents who exploit the State domain.

I have dwelt upon the condition of P* and the towns I visited around Lake Mantumba in my notes taken at the time, and these are appended hereto (Inclosure 3).[15] A careful investigation of the conditions of native life around the lake confirmed the truth of the statements made to me—that the great decrease in population, the dirty and ill-kept towns, and the complete absence of goats, sheep, or fowls—once very plentiful in this country—were to be attributed above all else to the continued effort made during many years to compel the natives to work india-rubber. Large bodies of native troops had formerly been quartered in the district, and the punitive measures undertaken to this end had endured for a considerable period. During the course of these operations there had been much loss of life, accompanied, I fear, by a somewhat general mutilation of the dead, as proof that the soldiers had done their duty. Each village I visited around the lake, save that of Q* and one other, had been abandoned by its inhabitants. To some of these villages the people have only just returned; to others they are only now returning. In one I found the bare and burnt poles of what had been dwellings left standing, and at another—that of R*—the people had fled at the approach of my steamer, and despite the loud cries of my native guides on board, nothing could induce them to return, and it was impossible to hold any intercourse with them. At the three succeeding villages I visited beyond R*, in traversing the lake towards the south, the inhabitants all fled at the approach of the steamer, and it was only when they found whose the vessel was that they could be induced to return.

At one of these villages, S*, after confidence had been restored and the fugitives had been induced to come in from the surrounding forest, where they had hidden themselves, I saw women coming back carrying their babies, their household utensils, and even the food they had hastily snatched up, up to a late hour of the evening. Meeting some of these returning women in one of the fields I asked them why they had run away at my approach, and they said, smiling, “We thought you were Bula Matadi” (i.e., “men of the Government”). Fear of this kind was formerly unknown on the Upper Congo; and in much more out-of-the-way places visited many years ago the people flocked from all sides to greet a white stranger. But to-day the apparition of a white man’s steamer evidently gave the signal for instant flight.

The chief of the P* post told me that a similar alarm reigned almost everywhere in the country behind his station, and that when he went on the most peaceful missions only a few miles from his house the villages were generally emptied of all human beings when he entered them, and it was impossible in the majority of cases to get into touch with the people in their own homes. It was not so in all cases, he said, and he instanced certain villages where he could go certain of a friendly reception, but with the majority, he said, he had found it quite impossible to ever find them “at home.” He gave, as an explanation, when I asked for the reason of this fear of the white man, that as these people were great savages, and knew themselves how many crimes they had committed, they doubtless feared that the white man of the Government was coming to punish their misconduct. He added that they had undoubtedly had an “awful past” at the hands of some of the officials who had preceded him in the local administration, and that it would take time for confidence to be restored. Men, he said, still came to him whose hands had been cut off by the Government soldiers during those evil days, and he said there were still many victims of this species of mutilation in the surrounding country. Two cases of the kind came to my actual notice while I was in the lake. One, a young man, both of whose hands had been beaten off with the butt ends of rifles against a tree, the other a young lad of 11 or 12 years of age, whose right hand was cut off at the wrist. This boy described the circumstances of his mutilation, and, in answer to my inquiry, said that although wounded at the time he was perfectly sensible of the severing of his wrist, but lay still fearing that if he moved he would be killed. In both these cases the Government soldiers had been accompanied by white officers whose names were given to me. Of six natives (one a girl, three little boys, one youth, and one old woman) who had been mutilated in this way during the rubber régime, all except one were dead at the date of my visit. The old woman had died at the beginning of this year, and her niece described to me how the act of mutilation in her case had been accomplished. The day I left Lake Mantumba five men whose hands had been cut off came to the village of T* across the lake to see me, but hearing that I had already gone away they returned to their homes. A messenger came in to tell me, and I sent to T* to find them, but they had then dispersed. Three of them subsequently returned, but too late for me to see them. These were some of those, I presume, to whom the official had referred, for they came from the country in the vicinity of P* station. Statements of this character, made both by the two mutilated persons I saw and by others who had witnessed this form of mutilation in the past, are appended (Inclosure 4).[16]

The taxes levied on the people of the district being returnable each week or fortnight, it follows that they cannot leave their homes. At some of the villages I visited near the end of Lake Mantumba the fish supplies have to be delivered weekly to the military camp at Irebu, or when the water is high in the lake and fish harder to catch, every ten days. The distance from Irebu of one of these towns could not have been less than 45 miles. To go and come between their homes and the camp involved to the people of this town 90 miles of canoe paddling, and with the lake stormy and its waters rough—as is often the case—the double journey would take at least four days. This consumption of time must be added to that spent in the catching of the fish, and as the punishment for any falling off in quantity or delay in delivery is not a light one, the Chief responsible for the tax stoutly opposes any one quitting the town. Some proof of this incidentally arose during my stay, and threatened to delay my journey. Being short-handed I sought, when at Ikoko, to engage six or seven young men of the town as woodcutters to travel on board the steamer. I proposed to engage them for two or three months, and offered good wages, much more than by any local service they could hope to earn. More men offered than I needed, and I selected six. The State Chief of the village hearing of this at once came to me to protest against any of his people leaving the town, and said that he would have all the youths I had engaged tied up and sent over to the Government official at Bikoro. There were at the time three soldiers armed with Albini rifles quartered at Ikoko, and the Chief sent for them to arrest my would-be crew. The Chief’s argument, too, was perfectly logical. He said, “I am responsible each week for 600 rations of fish which must be delivered at Bikoro. If it fails I am held responsible and will be punished. I have been flogged more than once for a failure in the fish supply, and will not run any risks. If these men go I shall be short-handed, therefore they must stay to help in getting the weekly tax.” I was forced to admit the justice of this argument, and we finally arrived at a compromise. I promised the Chief that, in addition to paying wages to the men I took, a sum representing the value to him of their labour should be left at Ikoko, so that he might hire extra hands to get the full quantity of fish required of him. S I admitted that he had been forced to flog men from villages which failed in their weekly supplies, but that he had for some months discontinued this course. He said that now he put defaulters into prison instead. If a village which was held to supply, say, 200 rations of fish each week brought only 180 rations, he accepted no excuse, but put two men in “block.” If thirty rations were wanting he detained three of the men, and so on—a man for each ten rations. These people would remain prisoners, and would have to work at Bikoro, or possibly would be sent to Coquilhatville, the administrative head-quarters of the Equator district, until the full imposition came in.

I subsequently found when in the neighbourhood of Coquilhatville that summary arrest and imprisonment of this kind for failure to complete the tale of local imposition is of constant occurrence. The men thus arrested are kept often in the “chain gang” along with other prisoners, and are put to the usual class of penitential work. They are not brought before or tried by any Court or sentenced to any fixed term of imprisonment, but are merely detained until some sort of satisfaction is obtained, and while under detention are kept at hard work.

Indeed, I could not find that a failure to meet the weekly tax is punishable by law and no law was cited to me as a warrant for this summary imprisonment, but if such a law exists it is to be presumed that it does not treat the weekly taxpayers’ failure as a grave criminal offence. The men taken are frequently not those in fault; the requisitioning authority cannot discriminate. He is forced to insure compliance with the demands imposed on each village, and the first men to hand from the offending community of necessity have to pay in the chain-gang the general failure and possibly the individual fault of others. Men taken in this way are sometimes not seen again in their own homes. They are either taken to distant Government stations as workmen, or are drafted as soldiers into the Force Publique. The names of many men thus taken from the Mantumba district were given to me, and in some cases their relatives had heard of their death in distant parts of the country. This practice was, I believe, more general in the past, but that it still exists to-day, and on an extensive scale, I had several instances of observing in widely separated districts. The officials effecting these arrests do not seem to have any other course open to them, unless it be a resort to military punitive measures or to individual corporal punishment; while the natives assert that, as the taxes are unequally distributed, and their own numbers constantly decreasing, the strain upon them each week often becomes unbearable, and some of their number will shirk the constantly recurring unwelcome task. Should this shirking become general instead of being confined to individuals, punitive measures are undertaken against the refractory community. Where these do not end in fighting, loss of life and destruction of native property, they entail very heavy fines which are levied on the defaulting village. An expedition of the minor kind occurred some five months before my presence in Lake Mantumba. The village in fault was that of R*, the one where when I sought to visit it no people would remain to face me. This village was said to have been some three weeks in arrears with the fish it was required to supply to the camp at Irebu. An armed force occupied it, commanded by an officer, and captured ten men and eight canoes. These canoes and the prisoners were conveyed by water to Irebu, the main force marching back by land.

My informant, who dwelt in a village near R*, which I was then visiting, said he saw the prisoners being taken back to Irebu under guard of six black soldiers, tied up with native rope so tightly that they were calling aloud with pain. The force halted the night in his town. These people were detained at Irebu for ten days until the people of R* had brought in a supply of fish and had paid a fine. Upon their release two of these men died, one close to Irebu and the other within sight of the village I was in, and two more, my informant added, died soon after their return to R*. A man, who saw them, said the prisoners were ill and bore the marks on wrists and legs of the thongs used in tying them. Of the canoes captured only the old ones were returned to R*, the better ones being confiscated.

The native relating this incident added that he thought it stupid of the white men to take both men and canoes away from a small place like R* as a punishment for a shortage in its fish supply. “The men were wanted to catch fish and so were the canoes,” he said, “and to take both away only made it harder for the people of R* to perform their task.” I went to R* in the hope of being able to verify the truth of this and other statements made to me as to the hardships recently inflicted on its people by reason of their disobedience, but owing to their timidity, to whatever cause this might have been due, it was impossible for me to get into touch with any of them. That a very close watch is kept on the people of the district and their movements is undoubted. In the past they escaped in large numbers to the French territory, but many were prevented by force from doing this, and numbers were shot in the attempt.

To-day the Congolese authorities discourage intercourse of this kind, not by the same severe measures as formerly, but probably none the less effectively. By a letter dated the 2nd July, 1902, the present Commandant of the camp of Irebu wrote as follows to the Rev. E. V. Sjoblom, a Swedish Missionary (since dead), who was then in charge of the Mission at Ikoko:

“Je vous serais bien obligé de ne pas permettre à vos jeunes gens de se rendre sur la rive Française et vendre aux indigènes Français qui ont fui notre rive, des vivres, produits du travail de nos indigènes, que eux-mêmes n’ont pas fui et ne se sont pas soustraits au travail que nous leur avons imposé.”

From Lake Mantumba I proceeded to the immediate neighbourhood of Coquilhatville, where five days were spent, chiefly at native communities which stretch for some distance along the east bank of the Congo. These villages formerly extended for 15 miles, and were then filled with a numerous population. To-day they are broken up into isolated settlements, each much reduced in numbers, and with (in most cases) the houses badly constructed. There were no goats or sheep to be seen, whereas formerly these were very plentiful, and food for the crew was only obtained with difficulty. In the village of V*, which I twice visited, the usual tax of food-stuff, with firing for the steamers, had to be supplied to Coquilhatville, which is distant only some 6 miles. A Government sentry was quartered here, who, along with one of the Chiefs of the town, spoke fully of the condition of the people. The sentry himself came from the Upper Bussira River, some hundreds of miles distant. This was, he said, his third period of service with the Force Publique. As his reason for remaining so long in this service he asserted that, as his own village and country were subjected to much trouble in connection with the rubber tax, he could not live in his own home, and preferred, he said, laughing, “to be with the hunters rather than with the hunted.” Both a Chief V* and this sentry represented the food taxes levied on this village as difficult for the people to collect, and only inadequately remunerated. There would appear in all these statements a contradiction in terms. The contributions required of the natives are continually spoken of as a “tax,” and are as continually referred to as being “paid for” or “remunerated.” It is obvious that taxes are neither bought nor sold, but the contradiction is only one of terms. The fact is that the weekly or fortnightly contributions everywhere required of the native communities I visited are levied as taxes, or “prestations annuelles,” by authority of a Royal Decree of the Sovereign of the Congo State. The Decrees authorizing the levy of these taxes are dated the 6th October, 1891 (Article 4), that of the 5th December, 1892, and (for the district of Manyeuma) that of the 28th November, 1893. There is a further Decree, dated the 30th April, 1897, requiring the establishment and up-keep by native Chiefs of coffee and cocoa plantations. I nowhere saw or heard of such plantations existing as institutions maintained by the natives themselves. There are plantations of both existing, but these are the property of either the Government itself or of some European agency acting with its sanction and partly in its interests, on lands declared as public lands. With regard to the two first Decrees establishing a system of taxation, provision was made for the investiture of a native Chief recognized by the local Government authority, who should give to this Chief a copy of the procès-verbal, as registered in the public archives, and a medal or other symbol of office. With this investiture a list was ordered to be drawn up, indicating the name of the village, its exact situation, the names of the Headmen, the number of its houses, and the actual number of the population—men, women, and children. The Decree then goes on to provide for the manner in which the “prestations annuelles” imposed on each village were to be assessed. A list of the products to be furnished by each village—such as maize, sorghum, palm oil, ground-nuts, &c., corvées of workmen or soldiers—was to be drawn up by the Commissaire of the district. It was provided that this list should also indicate the lands which were to be cleared and cultivated under the direction of the Chiefs, the nature of such cultivation put in hand, and “all other works of public utility which might be prescribed in the interest of public health, the exploitation or improvement of the soil, or otherwise.” These lists had first of all to be submitted for his approval to the Governor-General. I could not find that, save in respect of the strict enforcement of the contributions, this law was generally or rigorously observed. In many villages where I asked for it no copy of any procès-verbal could be produced, and in several cases no act of investiture of the local Chief seemed to have ever taken place. Plantations, such as those outlined in the Decree which made provision for them, nowhere exist in any part of the country I traversed. The enumeration of the houses and people had in some instances been made, I was informed, but it was many years ago; and as the population had since greatly declined, this enumeration could not to-day always serve as an accurate basis on which to reckon the extent of the existing contribution.

At the village of A*, which I visited twice during my stay in the neighbourhood, A furnished me with particulars as to his own public obligations. His portion of A* had formerly been extensive, and at the date when an enumeration was made contained many people. To-day it has only six adult householders, including himself, inhabiting now eleven huts in all, with their wives and children—a total population of twenty-seven persons. My attention was first drawn to him and his village by my meeting with a young boy—a lad of 7 years old, I should judge—whom I found in the village of U* as the recently acquired property of B. B told me he had bought the boy, C, from A for 1,000 rods (50 fr.). A, he said, having to meet a fine imposed by the Commissaire-Général for shortage in some of the weeks’ supplies, and being 1,000 rods short of the amount required, had pawned his nephew C to him for that sum. This had taken place on the , and my interview with B and the boy took place on the [blank space in text]. The next day I walked to A*, which lies within a few miles of Coquilhatville, and saw A and his town and people. There were then exactly eight men in the town, including himself; but as two have since been detained as prisoners at Coquilhatville for deficiencies in the weekly supplies, there were, when I last saw A* in September, only six adult males there. The weekly imposition levied on A’s part of A* was—

Kwanga 150 rations (about 700 lbs. weight of food). Fish 95 rations. Palm thatching mats 900 Firewood, for steamer fuel 2 canoe loads.

Also each week one large fresh fish or, in lieu thereof, two fowls for the European table at Coquilhatville. In addition, the men had to help in hunting game in the woods for the European station staff.

The payments made each week for these supplies (when they were completely delivered) were:—

Fr. c. Kwanga, 150 rods 7 50 Fish, 95 rods 4 75 Palm mats, 180 rods 9 0 2 canoe loads firewood, 1 rod 0 5 ——— 21 30

Payments for firewood were made by a paper receipt to be redeemed annually, but A told me he had refused to accept the annual payment of 50 rods (2 fr. 50 c.) for 104 canoe loads of wood delivered during the twelve months. To obtain these supplies A had frequently to purchase both fish and palm mats. The fish, as a rule, cost from 10 to 20 rods per ration, and the market price of thatching mats is 1 rod each; while the kwanga, which the Government paid 1 rod for, fetched just 5 rods each in the open market. The value of A’s weekly contribution was, according to current prices, as follows:—

————————————————————+————-+————————- | Rods. | Value. +————-+————— | | Fr. c. 150 rations, kwanga, each 5 rods | 750 | 37 50 95 “ fish, each 10 rods | 950 | 47 50 900 palm mats, each 1 rod | 900 | 45 0 2 canoe loads firewood, each 20 rods | 40 | 2 0 +————-+————— Total | | 132 0 ————————————————————+————-+————————-

Thus, taking no account of the fresh fish or fowls, A’s small township of eight households lost 110 fr. 70 c. per week. At the year’s end, while they had contributed 6,864 fr. worth of food and material to the local Government station, they had received as recompense 1,107 fr. 60 c. A, personally, had a larger share of the tax to meet than any of the others, and I found that the value of his personal contribution reached 80l. 3s. 4d. per annum by local prices, while he received in settlement 9l. 15s. in Government payments. He therefore contributed on his household of two wives, his mother, and dependents, inhabiting three grass and cane huts, an amount equal to 70l. 8s. 4d. per annum net.

These figures, I found on inquiry, were confirmed as correct by those who were acquainted with the local conditions. A stated that his elder brother, D, was in reality Chief of the township, but that some eight months previously D had been arrested for a deficiency in the fish and kwanga supplies. The Commissaire had then imposed a fine of 5,000 rods (250 fr.) on the town, which A, with the assistance of a neighbouring Chief named C, had paid. D was not thereupon at once released, and soon afterwards escaped from the prison at Coquilhatville, and remained in hiding in the forest. Soldiers came from the Government station and tied up eight women in the town. A and all the men ran away upon their coming, but he himself returned in the morning. The Commissaire-Général visited A*, and told A that as D had run away he (A) was now the recognized Chief of the town. He was then ordered to find his fugitive brother, whose whereabouts he did not know, and a town in the neighbourhood name E, suspected of harbouring him, was fined 5,000 rods. Since that date, although D had returned to A* to reside, A had been held, against his will, as responsible Chief of the town. He was a young man of about 23 or 24 years of age I should say. He had repeatedly, he stated, begged to be relieved of the honour thrust upon him, but in vain. His brother, D, had recently been put again in prison at Coquilhatville in connection with the loss of two cap-guns furnished him when Chief in order to procure game for the local white men’s table. The present impositions laid on A* were, A asserted, much more than it was possible for him to meet. He had repeatedly appealed to the Commissaire-Général and other officers at Coquilhatville, including the law officer, begging them to visit his town and see for themselves—as I might see—that he was speaking the truth. But, so far, no one would listen to him, and he had been always rebuffed. On the last occasion of his making this appeal, only three days before I saw him, he had been threatened with prompt imprisonment if he failed in his supplies, and he said he now saw no course before him but flight or imprisonment. He could not run away, he said, and leave his mother and dependents; besides, he would be surely found, and, in any case, whatever town harboured him would be fined as E had been.

On a certain Sunday, when he had gone in with the usual weekly supplies, which are returnable on Sundays, he had been short of eight rations of fish and ten rations of kwanga and 330 palm mats, representing a value of 84 rods (4 fr. 20 c.), as estimated on the scale of Government payments. On the same date the other and larger portion of A* town was also short of its tale of supplies, and a fine of 5,000 brass rods (250 fr.) was imposed upon the collective village. A’s share of this fine was fixed by the natives among themselves at 2,000 rods, of which 1,000 rods were to be his own personal contribution. Having himself now no money and no other means of obtaining it, he had pledged—with the consent of the father—his little nephew, D’s son, whom I had seen with B. In making inquiry, A’s story received much confirmation. He was, at any rate, known as a man of very good character, and everything pointed to his statement being true. On my return down river, I again saw A, who came after nightfall to see me, in the hope that I might perhaps be able to help him. He said that, since I had left a month previously, two of the boys of his town had been detained at Coquilhatville as prisoners when taking the rations on two successive weeks, owing to a deficiency on each occasion of 18 rods in value (90 cents.), and that these two boys—whose names he gave me—were still in prison. He had been that very day, he said, to beg that they might be released, but had failed, and there were now only five adult males in his village, including himself.

While in Coquilhatville on this mission, he declared that he had seen eleven men brought in from villages in the neighbourhood, who were put in prison before him—all of them on account of a shortage in the officially fixed scale of supplies required from their districts. I offered to take him away with me in order to lay his case before the judicial authorities elsewhere, but he refused to leave his mother. That A’s statements were not so untrustworthy as on the face they might seem to be, was proved a few days later by a comparison of his case with that of another village I visited. This was a town named W*, lying some three miles inland in a swampy forest situated near the mouth of the X* River. On quitting Coquilhatville, I proceeded to the mouth of this river, which enters the Congo some forty-five miles above that station, and I remained two days in that neighbourhood. Learning that the people of the immediate neighbourhood had recently been heavily fined for failure in their food supplies, which have to be delivered weekly at that station, and that these fines had fallen with especial severity on W*, I decided to visit that town.

It was on the 21st August that I visited W*, where I found that the statements made to me were borne out by my personal observation. The town consisted of a long single street of native huts lying in the midst of a clearing in the forest. In traversing it from end to end I estimated the number of its people at about 600 all told.

At the upper end of the town a number of men and women assembled, and some came forward, when they made a lengthy statement to the following effect. From this upper end of the town wherein I was 100 rations of kwanga had to be supplied weekly, and thirty fowls at a longer interval. These latter were for the use of Coquilhatville, while the kwanga was very largely for the use of the wood-cutters at the nearest Government wood-cutting post on the main river. The usual prices for these articles, viz., for the kwanga, 1 rod each, and for the fowls 20 rods were paid. The people also had to take each week 10 fathoms of firewood to the local wood-post, for which they often got no payment, and their women were required twice a week to work at the Government coffee plantation which extends around the wood-post.

I saw some bundles of firewood being got ready for carriage to this place. They were large and very heavy, weighing, I should say, from 70 to 80 lb. each. Some months earlier, at the beginning of the year, owing, as they said, to their failure to send in the fowls to Coquilhatville, an armed expedition of some thirty soldiers, commanded by a European officer, had come thence and occupied their town. At first they had fled into the forest, but were persuaded to come in. On returning, many of them—the principal men—- were at once tied up to trees. The officer informed them that as they had failed in their duty they must be punished. He required first that twenty-five men should be furnished as workmen for Government service. These men were taken away to serve the Government as labourers, and those addressing me did not know where these men now were. They gave eighteen names of men so taken, and said that the remaining seven came from the lower end of the town through which I had passed on entering, where the relatives themselves could give me particulars if I wished. The twenty-five men had not since been seen in W*, nor had any one there cognizance of their whereabouts. The officer had then imposed as further punishment a fine of 55,000 brass rods (2,750 fr.)—110l. This sum they had been forced to pay, and as they had no other means of raising so large a sum they had, many of them, been compelled to sell their children and their wives. I saw no live-stock of any kind in W* save a very few fowls—possibly under a dozen—and it seemed, indeed, not unlikely that, as these people asserted, they had great difficulty in always getting their supplies ready. A father and mother stepped out and said that they had been forced to sell their son, a little boy called F, for 1,000 rods to meet their share of the fine. A widow came and declared that she had been forced, in order to meet her share of the fine, to sell her daughter G, a little girl whom I judged from her description to be about 10 years of age. She had been sold to a man in Y*, who was named, for 1,000 rods, which had then gone to make up the fine.